Thursday, September 22, 2011

"For a decade their user
agreements have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any
independent research. Under the threat of litigation, scientists cannot
test a seed to explore the different conditions under which it thrives
or fails. They cannot compare seeds from one company against those from
another company. And perhaps most important, they cannot examine whether
the genetically modified crops lead to unintended environmental side
effects." Scientific American article by the editors, online, August 13, 2009

This
is not a new article but it's news to me. As I was reading, corn popped
into my head. Corn is regulated by the FDA as a pesticide - a pesticide
- due to genetic modifications that cause the GMO corn blooms to
disperse insect-killing chemicals into the air that were bred into the
plant predecessors.

Has any research been done on the
effects of this pestilential corn, just for example? Only research
approved by the breeders of the seed is released.

Please read the article. If you have any interest in non-GMO foods, please consider contacting your Congresspersons about it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency that focuses on the condition of the oceans and atmosphere, said that a severe solar storm could cause global chaos, wreck satellite communications and take down the most important power grids in the world for a period of years.

Please consider following Mary Shomon if you have any thyroid issues, think you might, or if you know someone who does. She does a comprehensive job of tackling thyroid conditions from as many angles as she can find, and she finds more every day.

If you have time, read through all the threads associated with The Johnson Method of Shooting Fish in a Barrel. This is the sort of thing we all must do to help alert each other to the dangers that lurk.

Yes, I have thyroid disease. I have eleven thyroid nodules and have had two biopsies. I expect to be referred for a third next time I see my endocrinologist.

Copyright 2008-2011 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Monday, June 6, 2011

God has not called me to suffer on your behalf; however, due to your insistence on publicizing what you believe to be the Mind of God, which in fact has proven you not to be prophets, I am suffering grievously.

If you purport to have knowledge not contained in the inerrant Word of God, such as His opinion on minorities you don't like, the date of the end of the age, and permission to burn writings of other religions for nothing more than notoriety's sake, explain your discernment process and identify your brethren who have assisted you in this process.

When you put yourself above the spreading of the Gospel, an action which is not in the Mind of God and never will be, you endanger simple praying Christians LIKE ME.

There are many people who would love to see me dangle. They torment me when people insert themselves into the Good News and spread themselves instead of the Gospel. It makes every day into Christmas Eve night for them.

I neither ask for nor deserve to feel frightened when any kook puts me in danger for any reason. Just as God hasn't stopped any of you from acting like idiots, He is highly unlikely to stop anyone from doing anything including wrongdoing towards me.

I call on Harold Camping, Westboro Baptist Church, and Terry Jones to either clearly disclose the discernment process which leads you to believe your actions are the Mind of God, or to cease and desist from your current behavior which endangers the faithful like me.

Sincerely yours,

Parin Stormlaughter

Copyright 2008-2011 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Snake oil made by snakes is very likely excellent for snakes, and reptiles in general. Modern-day snake oil is unlikely to contain any snake at all, which is probably why it is ineffective for anything except the revenues of the snake oil salesman.

Snakes rule.

Copyright 2008-2011 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

"The upshot for consumers: medical wisdom that has stood the test of time—and large, randomized, controlled trials—is more likely to be right than the latest news flash about a single food or drug." Sharon Begley, author of the News Week online article

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest the case I began to make when I started the Sparkling With Crystals blog.

It'll be three years ago next Monday when my father died. I knew he was dying. I believe he himself knew he was dying. Starting at the end of April, he would ask me the date of my younger daughter's high school graduation every day or two. We buried him on a Monday, and she matriculated on Wednesday. He hung on until classes were over. All she had left was cap-and-gown day.

I had watched the finest medical research to be had on this Earth keep my father alive but unwell for 18 years. He was awfully sick when he died. He had two separate and unrelated cancers, one of which had metastasized; he had Type II diabetes; he had high blood pressure; he was depressed; he had developed what I've seen called chemo-brain; he even had a bedsore. He was very, very sick for the last two years of his life, and unwell since his prostate diagnosis when he was 56. He delayed surgery and starting his treatment for about six months. I want to write that story some day.

For the vast, overwhelming duration of his life after his diagnosis he was sick, tired, hurting, suffering, oppressed, and so were we.

I was ready to change to a new direction in managing my health. I was not improving, my father did in fact die of the disease that the urologist treating his cancer had told him would not kill him -- so, I closed my eyes and jumped on rocks.

Using what Western medicine considers alternative and complementary treatments were old hat to me. It's one of those family stories, my brother teasing me about my homemade 'oils and unguents, salves and balms' when we were teenagers.

I knew from simple public school history classes that all ages have dealt with snake oil. The Age of Reason produced some of the most interesting medical reading: If the explanation and/or treatment for an illness sounded right to the prominent doctors of the day, it must be right and was exempt from further discussion. To challenge or deviate from the "what sounds right" path was to collect little more than scorn, desperate cases, and less money.

Faith and funding of the wise-woman or cunning-man healers has waxed and waned. The Church had valid spiritual reasons to oppose healing which utilized methods not in line with Church teaching. I recommend Witches, Midwives, and Nurses (Second Edition): A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. Seeing this topic from both sides, it's clear that the Church saw sick souls as spiritually at risk when consulting healers who worked with non-human spiritual and energetic beings. And it's plain risky no matter how well you believe you are able to protect yourself from the fully sentient beings' agendas. As well, they're unnecessary. Perhaps convenient, but nothing is free in this world. Make a deal with the devil and you will pay the price. You will. God Himself will see to it that you do unless you repent.

Anyway...

I had made up my mind that I wouldn't explore or share traditional healing techniques that had not withstood the test of time. No trying things like packing open wounds with fresh horse dung for me. I've never had an interest in dealing in incorporeal beings to accomplish what I was after. Even angels work for God, not for me, so I don't talk to them or to demons either one.

God gave us logical minds and doesn't appreciate when we're so open-minded that our brains fall out. New ways to use the ancient techniques that worthily continued to be taught to succeeding generations are assuredly worthy of being considered.

When I started this blog, I had planned-out and considered standards for what I would do and what I would not do, is what I mean.

Now, a clear and well-written article that was no doubt planned to stir the pot (or cauldron, as the case may be) has been published that substantiates my personal belief that much of what Western doctors give us orders to take, do, and submit to are nothing more than...wait for it...

Snake oil.

Please read the attached article. Consider your own health, the regimens you follow, the advice, prescriptions, protocols, and pharmaceuticals that your health consultants order. Decide what you will and will not do. And keep in mind:

When someone dies from a Western medical treatment during a study or afterwards, he or she has in fact died. That information is the least likely to be published, least likely to be known to your doctor, and possibly never accessible by anyone looking for it.

Age of Reason thinking has not withstood the test of time. Simply seeming to be correct isn't enough of a reason to chose any medical treatment no matter the source.

Cutting edge is not necessarily better or wiser. Ecclesiastes is always there to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun.

If your logical mind can't wrap around anything you read or hear from anyone, take that seriously. Talk with others and continue to study until you can figure out why.

Be strong in your belief system, whatever it may be. You will not be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong to you if you are not solid in what you believe.

And know that the Sparkling One never gives medical advice and most assuredly wouldn't dream of diagnosing anyone with anything. She hasn't cured herself yet, so she's not coming anywhere near you. :)

If you follow the news about health research, you risk whiplash. First garlic lowers bad cholesterol, then—after more study—it doesn’t. Hormone replacement reduces the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women, until a huge study finds that it doesn’t (and that it raises the risk of breast cancer to boot). Eating a big breakfast cuts your total daily calories, or not—as a study released last week finds. Yet even if biomedical research can be a fickle guide, we rely on it. But what if wrong a...

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The opening paragraphs are telling. It seems that the Migraine Research Foundation went into this ready to conclusively prove that morphine is bad for migraine treatment. The study results did not support that hypothesis.

Basically, the study did not prove its hypothesis but justified its existence through other interesting findings. The whole article is interesting if you're an egg-head like me. Continue to scroll down for other research projects and results if you're interested.

There will come a point in time when guidelines will state that opioids should not be prescribed for migraine treatment unless a well-managed and effective prevention regimen is also present.

What must happen before migraine treatment reaches that point:

Extensive and effective data-mining must be performed to clearly and unequivocally measure the effects of triptan usage. The data-mining must include locating the number of stroke and other cardiovascular event patients who were treated with triptans within 72 of the discovery of the event. If patients were not specifically asked about triptan usage prior to the event, that must be clearly noted as well. It must include locating the history of triptan usage by people identified as having MRI/CT lesions of people who also have migraine.

Well-designed data-mining studies must locate and clearly establish the effects of prevention regimens in patients who have opioids in their attack management plans.

These things must be kept in the forefront of the minds of everyone who has migraine, lives and works with migraineurs, studies migraine, or treats migraine:

No one has ever fallen over dead from one proper opioid dosage for migraine; however, people have fallen dead from ONE dose of a triptan

Until the effect of triptan administration on stroke and other cardiovascular patients has been thoroughly data-mined and further studied, nothing else is worth study

Sunday, February 13, 2011

"Have you had similar experiences when a healthcare provider went the extra mile to show you they cared?"

Nope.

You're another doctor and you are acquainted with the fellow doctor you saw. He felt guilty when he saw you in the gym and remembered he had not gotten back in touch with you. What, do you think he'd have risked ignoring you in front of the others in the gym? Or horrors, what if you'd approached him first??

I'm a toadstool with many signs but in all the wrong places. I don't have a gym membership nor money for one. I'm not long-time friends with doctors.

You're a doctor who was cared for by his office staff with attention and respect because doctor's offices close ranks. I make low-cost home-made treatments for myself from plants I forage out of the woods or with rocks from the dirt.

I'm terribly sorry you've got something to deal with health-wise. It's true, the old saying that if you have your health, you have everything.

But it's great to be you, isn't it?

Sincerely,

The Sagittarius Sun of Cynical, Sarcastic Bluntness

Copyright 2008-2010 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Monday, January 24, 2011

It has become clear to me over the last year, which I've spent working closely on emotional hygiene, that I've vastly underestimated the trauma of both migraine and Meniere's attacks that are part of the events.

I don't feel up to drawing a picture for you of the trauma of these attacks as I experience it. I dealt with a combination migraine/Meniere's attack over the weekend. I'm not over it yet another attack cycle has started. Thanks be to God this attack appears to be migraine only and not a combination attack.

Some months ago, I determined that I would take a dose of the Bach Flower Remedy (BFR) called Rescue Remedy each time I treated an attack with medicine. It has helped enough that I see now I should consider taking a dose for every attack whether I treat it with medicine or ride it out with complementary treatments. I've got a good preventative medicine regimen that's reduced the intensity of the pain significantly, quite well enough to make the expense of the drugs and their side effects worthwhile.

Attack trauma has contributed to my lack of function and neither Valium nor Effexor addresses it sufficiently. The support I get from Twitter and Facebook friends who endure the same thing is priceless. There's a problem when I need help immediately and no one is around and yes, this makes me needy. I state it clearly here now.

There are hundreds of flower remedies available. Bach Flower Remedies do not work the way any of them work. BFRs require effort on the part of both a patient and practitioner, if one goes that route; however, for me the simplicity is so encouraging and the results so long lasting that I knew it was for me.

Right now, I'm overreacting because I've mislaid my Encyclopedia. I've taken a dose of Rescue Remedy along with Indocin for the attack cycle that just started. I need to make up what's called a dosage bottle but it'll have to wait until I can find my Encyclopedia.

Who knows? One day when I'm well, I might include training as a Bach Flower Remedy practitioner when I finish my Master's in Transpersonal Studies.

As always, if anyone doesn't understand the hoopla of migraine, Meniere's Syndrome, fibromyalgia, and triggered attacks like that, I'll be glad to give you my take on it. Please comment and we'll talk. The comments are moderated just to keep out spam. I'm still getting Asian porn spam and that just doesn't do it for me. LOL

Bottom line is that I'm going to work more closely this year with the trauma aspect of attacks. BFR Star of Bethlehem, which is one of the components of Rescue Remedy, is for long-term trauma even if it occurred decades ago. The less trauma I experience and the more aggressively I treat what's already happened, the more function I believe I'll regain. Every crumb of function is worth fighting for like a pit bull.

Copyright 2008-2010 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.